German chamomile (M. chamomilla) is recognized as a star herb due to its medicinal and aromatic properties. This plant is found across a wide range of climatic and soil conditions. Both the flower heads and blue essential oils of German chamomile possess several pharmacological properties of an anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, antiseptic, antispasmodic and sedative, etc., nature, which makes it a highly sought after herb for use in many pharma and aroma industries. Chamomile tea, prepared from its flower heads, is also a well-known herbal tea for mind and body relaxation. Though it is a high-demand herb, farmers have not adopted this plant for large scale cultivation as a crop, which could improve their livelihood, due to the high cost in flower heads harvesting, loss in over mature and immature flower heads picking during harvesting, unavailability of varieties and agrotechnologies for machine harvesting, a lack of efficient process development of oil extraction and in the lack of improved stable varieties. There are many studies that have reported on the phytochemistry and pharmacological uses of chamomile, which further explore its importance in the medicine industry. Several studies are also present in the literature on its cultivation practices and plant ecology. However, studies on breeding behavior, genetic improvement, varietal development and mechanical harvesting are scarce in German chamomile. Hence, keeping in mind various aspects of farmers’ and researchers’ interest, earlier reports on taxonomy, floral biology, processing of oil extraction, active constituents, uses, agronomy, breeding challenges and opportunities in German chamomile are summarized in this review.

Stevia rebaudiana, a native of South America, is a perennial herb of the Asteraceae family, also known as a natural sweetener due to the presence of steviol glycosides (SGs) in the leaves. China is the largest producer and exporter of stevia, while Japan is the primary consumer. The increasing demand for natural low-calorie sweeteners in the medicine and food industry has increased the pressure over stevia cultivation. Still, its cultivation and region-specific agrotechnologies need to be developed. The major bottleneck in stevia production are the lack of region specific cultivation technologies, non-availability of quality planting material, and uncharacterized and not properly conserved plant genetic resources. All these constraints have limited the stevia production to some specific regions of the world. Development of high-yielding cultivars with enhanced SGs content using modern breeding techniques is of prime importance to meet its increasing demand. Among the glycosides present in the leaves, rebaudioside-A is the most desirable glycosides having 250–300 times sweeter than sucrose, while, after bitter taste is due to the presence of stevioside and dulcoside. Therefore, the development of varieties with high rebaudioside-A and low stevioside content is highly desirable. This chapter focused on the improvement of propagation methods, characterization and conservation of genetic resource in stevia and its utilization in crop improvement programs.

Dendranthema grandiflora is an important cut flower with high economic importance in the floriculture industry. Identification of stable and high yielding genotypes of Dendranthema grandiflora, hence becomes paramount for ensuring its year-round production. In this context, the genotype by environment interaction effects on 22 chrysanthemum hybrids across six test environments were investigated. The experiment was conducted using Randomized Complete Block Design with three replications for 6 years and data on various agro-morphological and yield-contributing traits were evaluated. Our analysis revealed significant mean sum of squares due to environmental, genotypic and genotype by environment interaction variations for all examined traits. A 2D GGE biplot constructed using first two principal components computed as 59.2% and 23.3% of the differences in genotype by environment interaction for flower yield per plant. The GGE biplot identified two top-performing genotypes, G2 and G5, while the AMMI model highlighted genotypes G17, G15, G6, G5, and G2 as the best performers. Genotype G17 ranked highest for multiple traits, while G2 displayed high mean flower yield as well as stability across all environments. According to AEC line, genotypes G2 and G5 exhibited exceptional stability, whereas genotypes G4, G18 and G19 demonstrated lower stability but maintained high average flower yields. Hence, our findings provide valuable insights into chrysanthemum hybrids that were not only best performing but also hold promise to meet the growers demand of the cut flower industry and can be recommended for large scale commercial cultivation.

Ferula assa-foetida L. is a perennial of Apiaceae family having seed dormancy which inhibits the germination. Oleo-gum resin obtained from the rhizomes of Ferula assa-foetida plant has several medicinal properties and used for the treatment of various diseases, pharmaceutical industries and in cooking of food in some countries. In present study, three different temperature treatments (5°, 15° and 25°C) were used to break seed dormancy in six Ferula assa-foetida accessions repeatedly for two years. Also the seedling survival rate with other morphological parameters like plant height, no. of leaves, leaf width, leaf length, root length and root diameter were observed on 3 month old seedlings in six different media mixtures during year 2019-20. The germination ranges from 3.63 (EC968466 at 25°C) to 81.88 percent (EC966538 at 5°C) with an average of 31.14 percent over all temperatures and genotypes. The mean germination time was ranged from 19.69 to 42.71 days with an average of 30.14 days. The highest germination (66.9%) and least mean germination time was observed at 5ºC (20.85) which showed that this crop required a 5ºC chilling treatment of about 20 days for breaking seed dormancy. The results pertaining to seedling survival experiment showed that media mixture of sand, soil, FYM and cocopeat (1:2:2:1 and 1:1:1:1 ratio) gave higher seedling survival rate (87.66%) and other morphological traits. It was also observed that the genotype EC966538 and EC968470 were the best performer for overall germination as well as seedling survival parameters and could be used as base population in future selection and improvement breeding programs.